TIDE LINE 1:1250 | Vloedlijn 1:1250

In 1993 and 1995, the IJssel river near Deventer rose to over 7 metres above sea level and the water reached the crest of the dyke. In 2012, work will start on excavating secondary channels to provide additional water storage, so that the chance of a repeat occurrence can be reduced to once every 1,250 years.

With TIDE LINE -1op1250-, I depict the time span between cause and effect of the Room for the River policy in the Netherlands.
TIDE LINE -1op1250- is about measuring and marking, planning and controlling, “the malleability of our landscape”. The artwork raises the question of the extent to which the capriciousness of nature can be controlled, directed and recorded in a mapped-out landscape, with a flood risk of 1 in 1250 every year.
240 picket posts symbolise working in and designing the landscape in our desperate attempt to control the unexpected and the unpredictable.

There is a blueprint, a kind of score that is followed with great precision. Reality is determined by chance, capriciousness and intangibility, just like the behaviour of the river.